Looking up my Past

My first experience of memory is when I was a couple of years old, and my mother had trimmed my hair and I was looking in the mirror at myself.  I looked, and I hated how I looked.  My mother was behind me, and I knew this was her fault, because she controlled my hair.  I was seventeen before I was able to grow my hair without her interference.     I don’t know if I said anything, but I sure felt as if the world was upside down.  My father had taken the four of us to a trestle above the City of Kansas City, Missouri.  Wherever we looked, there was rain flooding the place.  Only our car, on an elevated track, was above water.    And when My friend down the street was furious with me because I cut one side of her platinum blond hair, I was told I was awful, but who was it that gave us the scissors so that I could do such a thing?  I hadn’t the words to describe it.  So, I was bani...

  I had an experience with friends of mine early that probably changed my life, and it is going to sound ridiculous!     When my friends and I would do each other’s hair and nails and stuff, I would usually not care.     But one time, when I was about twelve or thirteen, and we were all comparing our best features, I was told that my best feature was my eyebrows.     No other features, just the eyebrows.     Everyone else had eyes, nose, mouth or some other features, but for me, there were only the eyebrows.     I’ve never forgotten it.     I knew my friend Marilyn had great lips and a small nose, and my friend Martha had regular features, and My friend Patsy had lovely blue eyes and nice features, and whoever else was there had more going for them.     I felt I had nothing. That night has stayed in my memory for all these many decades, and I’m afraid even my brows aren’t so great anymore.   That is whe...

  Other people died before my twenties:     my mother’s mother, whom I sat with at the hospital as she lay dying of melanoma, and my father’s father, whom I saw at 22 when my dad took us to Missouri right before he died.     But my big loss was my dearest friend in my twenties Mary, who died before she was thirty.     I met her and Dale when they moved to Goleta and ended up fast friends with my husband Sadiq and me.     I adored her.     Her husband helped with the dishes, she got to go to a consciousness raising group, she did woodworking classes, she breathed, she did not Stay in at night as I did.     When I left them, after leaving Sadiq, I took money my dad and lent her, and we established a relationship again.     I saw her after I moved to Berkeley, and she was in Santa Cruz.     When I met and married Bill, he was posted to Santa Cruz and Watsonville, and I was thrilled.     We rented...

  When I was 12, After a series of dancing lessons, all the kids who participated were invited to a ball.       Giles Vanlandingham asked me to the dance.     I was crazy about him.     He had dark hair and blue eyes, and I worried about my dress and what to say.     His parents picked me up, and we were so in puppy love!     We danced and got along really well, and at the end of the evening he said he would see me soon.     A week later, he was dead from sepsis.  I never saw him again.  All of us had to get hepatis shots and we were very aware than it could happen to us.  But it didn’t.  I went to his funeral, and people knew I was his girlfriend.  I didn’t know what to think, but I know he was a wonderful guy, and I hated the focus being on me.  I was too young to be able to absorb it, though at least I remembered him for the rest of my life.  He ...

  When I was a kid, I didn’t realize that something had happened to me that changed my life.     I found out from my aunt June, who told me after my parents had died.     My Aunt had married a man and had two daughters with him.     She divorced him, and He took his older daughter with him to California, and so I thought my aunt had only had one child, until she married again when I was a teenager.     But that is incorrect.     My aunt had had this first marriage and divorce, ten remarried before I was born, and her second husband loved me.     He had dark hair and eyes, like I did, and when he would stroll me, would say I was his daughter.     I was crazy about him, and when he died, in an accident taking my niece to ice skating lessons, my parents and my aunt told me not to speak about him, but of course I did.     My aunt tried to explain, but I was too young, and it buried itself in my unconscious....

  Another friend that I had back in the day was Lin.     We were very close, but not close enough.     The seven years I was in Colorado we remained friends, but when I returned to Berkeley, we began having problems.     I was sick of dealing with alcoholics.     I hadn’t even understood that she was.      She told me she was in love with me, but the next time she saw me she was in love with Bill.     Her emotions were irrational.     I finally told her I was tired of dealing with alcoholics, and suggested we stop seeing each other for a while.     I knew I gravitated towards alcoholics, and I was sick of it.     So, we stopped corresponding, and I began seeing Sharon without seeing Lin.     It was the best thing I had ever done.     Our relationship blossomed, and I could deal with Sharon because she was not an alcoholic. Even after Sharon moved to Washington, after s...

  My father’s one sibling, Wayne, was older and they had their tiffs all along.     They were every different temperamentally, with my uncle being older and soft spoken and not confrontational, and my dad being the rebel outsider during World War II.     My Dad was in the army air corps.     He has a pilot and crazy to boot.     My parents were married during the war and based in Texas on the border.     My Uncle Wayne and Aunt Maxine had both been married before, so they were divorced and married during the war.     I loved my Uncle Wayne, and until I was sixteen or so, he gave me a Sapphire ring whenever the old one was too small.     We didn’t see them much, but I loved him and Aunt Maxine. When my parents died, 10 months apart, they tried to become our grandparents, and we spent one Christmas with them, and visited at least once a year.  They had retired to Florida after living in Edina, Minnesota m...

  I met several people when I returned to Berkeley who would turn out to be fair-weather friends: but the worst was Despina.     We were best friends immediately and seemed to get along so well.     Our daughters were very compatible, and My friend was in Anon as well.     She had a mother who was very difficult, and my experience with Alcoholics was similar.      We read books to each other and spent time as a family with their family:     her, her husband, and their two daughters, the older of which was Jessi’s friend.     When we decided to take them to the cabin, I thought it would be wonderful, but as it turned out, Despina thought it was roughing it at the holiday inn, so a cabin was way too difficult for her.     The kids became difficult, and Her child, Sadie, became antagonistic towards Jessi, and began spitting at her.     Then she hit her.     I assumed my friend would relent, ...

  One of my friends from Santa Cruz, who had moved to Richmond and worked for the Dept of Health in Berkeley had a stroke after a few years and was taken to our hospital because it happened at work.     She fell in the parking lot.     Her only child, Jennifer, the age of my daughter Ramiza, called me.     I had just seen her at the Christmas party at my house, and she stayed after everyone had left but Julie.     She had said she was tired of her meds and needed some help, and I begged her to Keep up with them. I tried but had ended up in the hospital.         Jennifer had flown down from Washington State and I met up with her to see. Pam had been operated on then had a huge stroke after and was now considered near death.     I asked Jennifer to stay with me and try to work it out.     Her friend from Watsonville was supposed to be coexecutor, but she chickened out. Jennifer stayed with me 10 days, and...

  Another big change in my life was collecting.     I had collected boxes from Karmir for years, because they were cheap, and it began with one box from my mom, but now I began collecting Native American artifacts and elephants and Mexican coconut masks.     I enjoyed these collections, though I didn’t care about price, I just bought what I liked, but sometimes I picked more valuable objects than I was able to in the past.     I don’t collect anymore now.     I’m past that involvement.     Now I Know everything will be divided up after I’m gone, but I don’t care at all. But back then I really had fun with basketry and some pricier objects.   I loved also getting more paintings and decorations from various connections I had.  I love the stuff My kids, Barbara and others have gifted me with, including her spear that sits in my hallway (Barbara), and various objects from the kids and others.  I enjoy them still...

  Infiltrating the change in my fortune is important because despite all the horror of the last few years:     The death of my best friend in my twenties, my first husband’s death, my parents’ deaths, The death of my friend in the safehouse in Colorado, the reversal in fortunes made me more independent, and rescued me from a life of misery, so that I could live a life I wanted without fear of retribution.      The part of my life after my parents’ deaths freed me in a strange way. My mother had been an alcoholic, and my parents’ squabbles were now behind me, for better or worse.  I had my first Christmas without my parents arguing, and it was delightful, and that Christmas the older two kids went back to Colorado, and the rest of us had Christmas at a rented cabin in Pinecrest.  That next year we began looking for a cabin of our own, and by November that year it was ours.  What a difference the cabin made to all of us. ...

  I don’t know exactly what happened yesterday, but I feel certain that talking in general terms about trips we have taken was not what I wanted to do.     I saw that with Sadiq’s death, my parents’ deaths and those of other of my friends, we were on such a downward spiral that I try to avoid it.     Bill was upset, and he left his job and slid into a massive depression:     mainly because he couldn’t cope with working and pretending to care.     He did do many things that were necessary:     taking care of the taxes, living our lives well, mostly, considering.     I think now he just wanted to be left out of the financial situation.     To him there seemed enough money not to need to work.     But I wouldn’t hear of it, so he eventually found a job after two years:     Doing tax work, but it didn’t net any real income.     I was trying to work as well, after the initial Mononucleosi...

What was it about traveling that encouraged us so:  For one thing, we both had good, compatible travel genes.  Each of us might be off one of the days, but mostly we stuck together and listened to the kids as well.  We saw many a zoo around the world.  And we took boat rides and destinations that meant we saw fun sights we wouldn’t have without kids.  I loved the zoos as well, and we saw ones that were dismal (like the zoo in Barcelona) and others that were terrific.   An inside day was made better by a park nearby or a treat outside.  An outside day was accompanied by shady nooks and long breaks under the trees. I remember people in the parks beside venues, and Lots of down time if it was very hot.  We loved our visits with other Americans as well, and they made our dreams more fun.  We found places that were shady and lovely.  I enjoyed them all and I was even more happy to be home at t...

  I especially loved my friends and their allies.     WE took the big trip after Riyad’s graduation, and the next trips were our trip with the two younger kids from Amsterdam to Rome (a month). then a trip to Greece and Egypt.     We spent a week in Amsterdam then went to Brussels, Bruges and Ghent, then into Austria, Switzerland and then on a river cruise around the Rhine, then to Venice, Florence and Rome.     When we were flying out it was stormy and difficult, but we made the flight.     We also flew to New York and Washington, D.C. and then Williamsburg. We saw Bill’s sister Joan and Ramiza in New York, and then we on by train to Washington, D.C. then Williamsburg.     There we saw Peter, Paul and Mary that night.     We also too trips everywhere else that worked out for us.     The month long trip to Europe was amazing, and the Egypt and Greece trip was one of my favorite trips, especially with Egypt being ...

  I think one thing that changed me is I realized I wasn’t going to be focused on men in general, and no one like my husband.     I would never have another husband.     I was past that whole era of my life.     I got along with Bill, but he wasn’t my goal in life anymore.     I wanted women friends and that was about it.     I wasn’t encouraged by any males, even if I found them interesting, and I seldom did. That freed me from my obsessions about men in general.  I wouldn’t dislike men, but I would never look to them again for encouragement. My friends were women, and I had some of those who betrayed me, but only because I didn’t vet them well.  I had to learn to distrust women as well as men.  Not all, but just some. I began with squabbles with Lin, then Joyce, then Despina, and finally Marilyn.  But I soon got the hang of it.  Quick friendships make lousy friends.  I be...

  I realized that my tenure as a member of an advisory board for Berkeley was perhaps too soon.     I let myself ease out of the position after a year.     I really didn’t want to be overly connected to safehouses anymore.     As I was finishing my book, I became enamored of a new topic:     Writing letters back to my young self about my situation in Fiji.   My editor was crazy about it, but later, I learned she had told her partner and the next two books her partner wrote encouraged my plan, and my idea was made irrelevant.     That’s how my editor paid me back.   I threw myself into more parental roles as a friend of the libraries and helping the School Board with art.  As a result, they encouraged me to apply for the role as art teacher for Jessi’s kindergarten class.  The next year, Emerson Elementary School made me the art teacher for the entire school.   I was supposed to teach for ...

I am sorry it has been two weeks since my last blog, but I had my granddaughter and son-in-Law John with me the first week and my oldest friend Marilyn from Virginia the second week.  I had a wonderful time with all three, but I didn’t have time to write. So, I continue my blog with new and old friends.  I Quickly responded to Sandra, who had a daughter my younger daughter’s age, and we became great friends.  Her husband was a manager various bands, and his biggest group was soon to be famous – Green Day.  Our lives were different, but we got along well.  Then I spent a lot of time with Anne, who lives up the street from me, had her three kids were a good match for us.  Her youngest was one of Jessi’s best friends from preschool, Greg.  Then I was also close with Marianne, who was a block from me.  Her youngest of three was the same age as Jessi, named Olivia.  We often walked home together, and we...